Asylum
The plan was fairly simple. We got to Rockford, Illinois, checked into our motel, and tracked the dead cop's partner where he was mourning, I guess, alone in a bar. "Hey! Whatz up!" I laughed drunkly, holding a beer over my head waving my arms. I wasn't actually drunk. I'd only sipped it a few times. I was doing this, keeping people away from the cops long enough for the boys to get information out of him. Dean was there right now, pretending to be a reporter named Nigel Tufnel, wanting questions answered about his partner.
"I think you had enough." A passing bartender said, scowling at me.
Behind me, the cop named Daniel was scowling angrily at Dean looking pissed. Coping with an attitude, he said, "Yeah, I do. I'm just trying to have a beer here."
"I'll tell you when I've had enough." I grinned creepily at the bartender.
Back behind me, "That's okay." Dean pushed on. "I swear it won't take that long. I just want to get the story in your words." I raised my hands, dancing like a crazy chick as I 'accidentally' bumped some guy away from the table Dean and Daniel were sitting at.
Behind me, "A week ago, my partner was sitting in that chair. Now he's dead. You gonna ambush me here."
Someone bumped me from behind and my beer sloshed out of my cup.
Behind me, Dean said more firmly. "But I need to know what happened."
A pissed look briefly passed on my face as I glared after the person that made me spill my drink. At that moment, Sam was grabbing Dean by the shoulders from behind, yanking him off and pretending they never knew each other. "Hey buddy, why don't you leave the poor guy alone! The man's an officer! Why don't cha show a little respect!" And then Dean walked out, his part completed.
"Hey babe, wanna dance?" Some passing drunkard asked me.
Behind me, Daniel was saying, "You didn't haveta do that." Not suspicious at all.
I laughed, like I would ever dance with this guy whose squinty eyes and flushed red fat face couldn't keep his eyes off my breasts, and I wasn't even wearing one of my lower cut tank tops.
Behind me, Sam was tensed seeing me and the guy behind Daniel. "Yes, of course I did. That guy's a serious jerk. Let me buy you a beer." Sam stood up, already making his way towards us.
"That's real funny." I shoved him much harder than necessary, looking wobbly as I did so. He was so drunk, he fell straight over. What a dick. Sam smirked as he passed, pretending he'd never seen me before in his life. Then the music picked up, got louder, and I couldn't hear much after that. When Sam was ready to go, he casually ran a hand through his hair as he stood. That was my signal and I left, meeting Dean who stood against the Impala in the parking lot. "Looking a little drunk for a second there, sweetheart." Dean grinned when he caught sight of me.
"Well at least I wasn't shoved out." I smirked, jumping up to sit on the hood. Then I took a sucker from the pocket on the chest of my jacket and started eating. Dean shook his head, arms crossed as he observed my antics.
Sam joined them fairly quickly after that. "Walter Kelly was a good cop. Head of his class, even keeled, he had a bright future ahead of him."
I scoffed, hands curling around the curve of the impala I sat on either side of me. "Well something wasn't right or he wouldn't have shot himself."
"Is there anything about his home life?" Dean asked. If it wasn't work, there was always the home option to jump to.
Sam shook his head. "He and his wife had a few rights like everybody. But he was mostly smooth sailing. They were even talking about having kids."
"So why would someone like his murder his wife and then do suicide." I said, dropping my chin onto the palm of my hand.
Dean looked between Sam and I. "Alright, so either Kelly had some deep seated crazy waiting to bust out or something else did it to him."
"Story of our lives, nothing is ever natural." I said, jumping off the impala.
"So what'd Gunderson tell you about the asylum?" Dean asked.
"A lot." Sam said. Then the Winchester's climbed into the car for the added secrecy.
Several hours later, it was morning as we broke in. I found it quite easy to climb over the chain link fence that had a new padlock on it. "Damn, I knew I hated asylums." I muttered, turning on my flashlight I grabbed from the trunk as soon as we entered.
Sam took the lead, walking us deeper into the darkness. The place was covered in dirt and dust, looking like any wrong step or touch could collapse some of the furniture. "So apparently the cops chased the kids here, into the south wing." I raised the flashlight up towards the ceiling where the south wing sign barely hung.
"So just the one?" I asked. What made he south wing different from any of the other wings.
"Wait a second." Dean passed his flashlight over to Sammy to hold before Dean pulled out dad's journal from his inside pocket. He flipped a few pages and I used my light so he could read them easier. "Nineteen seventy two, three kids broke into the south wing. Only one survived. Way he tells it, one of his friends went nuts and started lightning up the place." That would probably explain some of the faded burn marks on the floor and scorched spots on the furniture.
"So whatever's going on, the south wing is the heart of it." Sam said.
I shined my light into the darkness that was known as the south wing. "But what is in there that are making these people go crazy?"
"Shouldn't there be a ton more deaths though, if the kids are spelunking in the asylum?" Dean asked.
This place was known to be hunted. I knew enough to know that kids would usually flock a place like this. "Looks like the doors are usually chained." Sam was the first to notice the chains hanging off the door and onto the floor. "Could've been chained up for years."
"To keep nosy kids from poking around." I mused.
"Or to keep something in." Dean said. I shared a look with my brothers before Sam slowly, cautiously pushing the door open. As if waiting for something to attack us. When nothing happened, he crept forward. I slowly followed behind him. Dean being him couldn't help himself to joke as he followed. "Let me know if you see any dead people, Haley Joel." Haley Joel was some nine year old after ages ago that played a psychic, he was known for seeing dead people.
I grinned, putting the flashlight under my chin, making my face glow all creepy like. "I see dead people." I whispered darkly.
"Come on, enough!" Sam complained, taking my flashlight. I poured.
Dean grinned cockily. "I'm serious. You gotta be careful, alright? Ghosts are attracted to that whole ESP thing you got going on."
I grinned crookedly. "Maybe we should check him into psychics anonymous."
Sam didn't find it so funny. "It's not ESP! And I'm not a psychic!" Refusing to believe powers he didn't know he possessed were surfacing. "I just have strange vibes...weird dreams." He stopped.
"That's a psychic." I said, and Sam glared at me. I shrugged, uncaring that he was mad.
"Whatever." Dean muttered. He paused long enough to pull out his EMF reader. "Don't ask, don't tell."
They continued walking down what seemed like an endless hallway. "You get any reading on that thing or not?" Sam asked, looking annoyed.
I could see as I was beside Dean that the EMF was making noises but there was no blimps showing. No red lights in the little bulb, but these things weren't exactly foul proof. Dean sighed, glancing around the dust covered room. "Of course it doesn't mean no one's home."
"Just makes our job a whole lot harder." I said, listening to the clicking of our heels on the floor.
"Spirits can't appear during certain hours of the day." Sam suggested. Spirits usually kept to a certain schedule, never changing. And all the deaths we found online always happened after dark. And it was midday now.
"Yeah, the freaks come out at night." Dean muttered as they passed another opened doorway.
"Is there ever a better time?" I grumbled, picking at my nails with a bored expression.
Dean started to grin. "Hey, whose the hitter psychic; Patricia Arquette of Jennifer Love Hewitt?" His attempt to diffuse the tension worked. Sam pushed Dean lightly, grinning. I threw my head back and giggled as we entered another room.
That put the laughter out. This room looked like some of ancient torture chamber. I let my jaw drop a little at some of the things we saw and Dean let out a low whistle. "Man, electro-shockers. Lobotomies. They did some twisted stuff to these people."
I gingerly touched the aged old electric chair. "Maybe that's why nowadays it's considered inhumane and rarely ever used."
"Kinda like my man Jack in Cuckoo's Nest." Dean grinned, making crazy eyes. But this time it fail as Sam ignored Dean. Dean's smile dropped so I patted his shoulder sympathetically. Pretty much all I could do. "So do we have ghosts possessing people?" He asked, focusing on the case.
"Sounds like it." I said, circling around a table with straps on it.
"It could be more like Amityville, or the smurl hunting." Sam suggested.
"Spirits driving them insane. Kinda like my man Jack in the Shining." Dean grinned. I shook my head. He was as obsessed with movies as I was my weapons.
Sam pulled to a stop and suddenly asked, "When are we going to talk about it?"
"Talk?" I faked naive. I knew exactly what he was talking about and I just wanted to avoid this entire conversation.
"Talk about what?" Dean asked, doing a better job then I at 'playing dumb'.
"About the fact dad's not here." Sam said. Despite being the only girl, it seemed to me that Sam was more into that whole 'talk about your feelings' then I ever was. I was used to bottling things up inside.
"Not interested." I said, turning my back to them, pretending to study the age old dust.
"We can always do it, how about never?" Dean suggested, following my lead.
Sam being who he is, pushed on. "I'm being serious, man. He sent us here..."
"To do his dirty work." I grumbled.
We completely gave up on trying to ignore the conversation and we were now all facing each other arguing. "Look, he sent us here, he obviously wants us here. We'll pick up the search later."
"It doesn't matter what he wants!" Sam insisted, throwing his hands into the air.
"I second that." I said.
"Now you see this." Dean said, looking back and forth. "This attitude is always why I got the extra cookie. And probably would have gotten a second extra." I rolled my eyes. We would never know because I was never there.
"Dad could be in trouble, as should be looking for him. We deserve some answers." Sam said.
I scoffed, "I gave up searching for my answers ten years ago."
"Dad has given us an order." Dean said, trying to get through to us.
"Like I should listen to anything he says. He never did anything for me." I scowled, hands twitching. I just wanted to grab something and throw it.
"Do we always have to follow dad's orders?" Sam demanded, looking pissed.
"Of course we do!" Dean snapped like it was law. Like everything dad said was order. As if they don't pretty much break ten different laws a day. Sam looked at him clearly frustrated. I was scowling, crossing my arms over my chest angrily. Dean finally turned around and just like that, the conversation was over. Dean picked up a sign he found. "Stanford Ellicott." He read. "You know what we gotta do. We gotta find out more about the south wing. See if something happened here." Then he walked away. Sam looked after him with his standard bitch face.
Several seconds passed. "Whatever," I muttered, tucking my hands behind my head before I followed.
Nearly an hour later, "How much longer will he be?" I impatiently looked at the clock on the wall. I had entered the Clinical Psychiatry hospital ten minutes, nearly thirty minutes after Sam had went in faking as a patient to get Dr. James Elicott to talk about what he knew of his father who was the same Elicott from the south wing.
"Will you just sit down already!" Some hussy with far to much makeup and a top to tight scowled at me.
"Just go back to your magazine!" I snapped, starting to pace again. I ignored her huffing and idle flipping of her magazine. I was hungry and the fight from earlier had me on edge. All I could do was stand here and wait, hoping Sammy brought back valuable information. He'd better after how long he'd been in there.
In the room, Ellicott was sitting behind his desk, his notebook out while Sam sat in the chair in front of him trying to get answers. "So what have you been doing, Sam?" Ellicott questioned.
Sam slowly nodded, clasping his hands together awkwardly. "Ah, same old. I have just been on a road trip with my brother. And I met my older sister I didn't know existed, she's traveling with us to."
Outside, said older sister plopped down in a chair, stretching her legs out in front of her. Then some teen leaving tripped over my outstretched legs. "Sorry!" I called after him as he tripped down those few nearby stairs. I fell back into my seat again, crossing my arms. Getting bored out of my skull, I started making that clicking sound with my mouth that annoyed people.
"Will you shut up already!" That same hussy threw her magazine at me. I gave her my most irritating stare.
Inside, "Why don't you tell me about this brother of yours?" Ellicott was saying to Sam. "How do you feel knowing and being in daily contact with the sister you never met before?"
Outside, I looked up as Sam was passing me with a freaked out look on his faces. "Sammy!" I called, jumping up after him. He jumped in the doorway of the building, turning around startled. "What happened in there!"
"Dudes, you were in there forever? What the hell were you talking about?" Dean demanded, having seen them exited. He'd been waiting outside by the car.
"Just the hospital...you know." Sam stuttered.
"And?" Dean pressed.
I waved my hands a little. "Mind telling us what he said that took nearly two hours."
"The south wing." Sam started. "It's where they housed the really hard cases." I would think all psychopaths were nutso's. "The criminally insane."
"Sounds cozy." Dean commented.
I crossed my arms back over my chest. "Yeah, if you like fights, screaming, and bars on the window."
"Listen." Sam said. "One night in '64, they rioted. Attacked staff. Attacked each other."
"So the patients took over the asylum?" Dean guessed.
I grinned almost cockily. "Still think it's cozy?" I couldn't handle being locked up. I'd probably go nuts just because of it.
"Was there any deaths?" Dean asked.
Sam nodded. "Some orients, some staff." That happens when there was a riot involved. "I guess it was pretty gory?" Was there any other kind when the criminally insane overtook an asylum? "Some of the bodies were never recovered, including our chief of staff, Ellicott."
I tucked my hands into my pockets, fiddling with my phone. "Well that's never a good sign."
We stopped walking only as we officially reached the car parked across the street. "Whatddaya mean, never recovered?" Dean demanded.
Sam turned to us. "Cops scoured every inch of the place but I guess the patience must've," he paused for a moment to think. "Stuffed the bodies somewhere hidden."
Dean raised an eyebrow, "That's grim."
"When isn't our lives grim?" I said, sitting on the trunk of the impala.
"So they transferred all the remaining patients and closed the hospital down." Sam finished his explaining.
"So, to sum it up, we've got a bunch of violent deaths and a bunk of I recovered bodies." Dean said.
I sighed, hands tucked between my knees. "And they're all probably still hidden somewhere in that hospital."
"While they're spirits are getting more pissed off by the day." Sam finished.
"Good times. Let's check out the hospital tonight." Dean decided.
"Well what else would we do?" I hopped off the impala. We climbed in and started driving to the motel to wait out the next few hours.
Several hours later, a young couple from the local collage had just snuck into the asylum. "Check this out!" The guy said excited. "Creepy yet terrifying."
"I thought we were going to a movie." His blonde haired girlfriend whined.
The guy tried to get her more excited about it. "This is better! It's like we're in a movie!"
The guy huffed, crossing her arms as she looked at the dust covered objects in clear disgust, and him in annoyance. "I can't believe you call this a date." The guy inside on moving forward. And then laughed about it when the girl hit him after he played a joke of pretending someone else was there. "Let's just go." She begged.
Finally, the guy seemed to relent. "Okay, okay." Then he started to grin. "You can wait here." He nodded at the door behind them they'd just walked through.
"Gavin, no." The girl protested to her boyfriend before he could leave her.
"I'm just gonna be a minute." Gavin grinned, to excited, wanting to get a move on with his exploration. "Nothing's gonna get us, I promise." The he went through the next door across the room, slamming it behind him as he went. Several minutes passed before he noticed a glimpse of long blonde hair hidden by the shadows. Gavin started to grin at his girlfriend. "Hey sweetie, couldn't take it, huh?" Gavin couldn't see to well in the dark as she came closer but could just tell from the moonlight through barred windows shining on her blonde hair. Then she kissed him. It felt different but he didn't bother to try to figure it out.
Not until he heard this. "Gavin? Gavin, where are you?" It was clearly his girlfriends voice coming from where he left her. But if she was there...who was with him? He slowly pulled back, a look of horror overcoming his face as he saw who, or what, he'd been kissing. He couldn't even scream.
Outside, "Damn, it just gets darker and darker." I muttered, squinting as we walked in, even if I was holding the flashlight.
"Getting readings?" Sam asked. He was holding the video camera on the night view. Dean was holding up the EMF meter that had all the little red bulbs glowing, lightning up.
"Yeah, big time." Dean said, glancing around cautiously.
"Never a good sign." I muttered, nearly tripped over one of those old music players, you know, the one that played albums with the giant horn on it.
"This place is orbing like crazy." Sam said, seeing the red lights continuously going off.
"Probably multiple spirits out and about." Dean said, and he probably wasn't off on that at all.
"Wasn't the amount of bodies missing unknown?" I asked, moving the flashlight towards the ceiling. "Who knows how many spirits could be here."
"We gotta find them and burn them." Dean said. Standard practice against spirits. "Just be careful though." Hopefully we could get through this without torching the whole place. "The only thing that makes me more nervous that a pissed off spirit is the pissed off spirit of a psycho killer." They did the only thing they could do. They kept walking.
Several minutes of tense silence passed as they explored the age old asylum. But then Sam was suddenly screaming, seeing something through the camera lens. "Shotgun!"
I held up the flashlight to where he was pointing, already pulling my gun now filled with salt bullets. But by that point, Dean was screaming, "Get down!" Yanking a shotgun out of the duffle he carried. I dive to the ground, feeling the bullets ruffle my hair as the ghostly woman disappeared in smoke. Only after she disappeared did I slowly climb to my knees.
"That was weird." Sam commented, breathing hard.
"Yeah, you're telling me." Dean muttered, lowering his gun.
"At least we know we're where we're supposed to be." I said, climbing to my feet. Then we moved to the next room.
"I mean it was weird that she didn't attack me." Sam corrected, always looking for different answers. Always seeing what most overlooked.
I looked over at him. "Yeah, only because Dean here shot her ass before she got a chance."
Dean shrugged. "It looked like she was about to attack from where I was standing."
But Dean was still protesting. "She didn't hurt me! She didn't even try! So if she didn't wanna to hurt me, then what did she want?" Before I could open my mouth to argue, there was a sudden noise in the room we'd entered that none of us caused. I immediately raised my flashlight to the sound, one hand on my gun, Dean holding his shotgun in the lead. The sound was coming from an old metal bed leaning against the wall. I prepared myself for any possibility we may face before Sam knocked over the bed. What we weren't prepared for was the shriek of a blonde haired, living, non supernatural woman to be hiding back there. I let my hand drop from the gun as Dean lowered his.
"It's alright, we're not going to hurt you." Dean tried comforting her, pulling the woman to her feet.
"What is your name?" I said awkwardly when we descended into silence.
The woman looked hesitant before saying, "Katherine...Kat."
"Okay, I'm Dean. This is Sam and Chris."
"What are you doing here?" Sam asked. Which was a good question, the same could be said for us.
"Who hangs out in an abandoned asylum?" I muttered.
"Um," Kat stuttered. "My boyfriend, Gavin." My eyes widened, there was someone else roaming around here with spirits on the loose?
"Is he here?" Dean demanded anxiously. He could be dead by now for all we knew.
"Somewhere." Kat said awkwardly. "He thought it would be fun, try and see some ghosts." Yeah, because ghosts were real funny, I thought sarcastically. "I thought it was all just...you know." Until they ripped out your hearts. "Pretend." It always is until someone gets hurt. "I've seen things." She looked like she was about to start crying. "I heard Gavin scream and..."
"And now you have no idea what happened to him." I concluded. She nodded tearfully.
"Alright, Kat. Come on. Chris here is gonna get you out of here and then we're gonna find your boyfriend." Dean said. I glared at him, he should know by now that I hated baby sitting duty. Couldn't Sam do it, he was better with people than I was.
But Kat protested. "No!" Realizing how loud she was, she lowered her voice and tried again. "No, I'm not going to leave without Gavin. I'm coming with you." She was going to regret saying that after the ghosts came out to play.
"It's no joke around here, okay?" Dean said firmly. "It's dangerous."
"You're better off just leaving while you still can." I said. "So we can find your boyfriend quick enough."
"You said it was dangerous, right?" Kat asked, looking at Dean. "That's why I gotta find him." I shared a look between my brothers. Sam shrugged and I huffed.
"Alright." Dean agreed. "I guess we gunna split up there. Let's go." We started going down the hallways, calling for Gavin. I was trailing in the back near Kat when Dean joined us. "I got a question for ya. You've seen a lot of horror movies, right?" Kat slowly nodded. "Next time you see one, pay attention. When someone says a place is haunted, don't go in!"
I snorted very unladylike, "The world would probably be a much better place if people actually paid attention." I pulled to a stop curiously. "Hey, did anyone see where Sam went?" He had apparently snuck off down another hallway while they were talking.
"...Son of a butch." Dean cursed when he realized Sam had gone. And then the flashlight in my hand flickered and died. "Son of a bitch!"
"Now what are we supposed to do?" I grumbled.
"It's alright, I got a lighter." Dean said, pulling it out. The light was barely a flicker of flame but it had to be better than nothing.
"Ow." Kat suddenly complained. "You're hurting my arm." I wasn't even touching her.
Dean apparently wasn't either because he suddenly stopped, making me almost smack into him as he turned. "What are you talking about?" I faced Kat as realization drew on me. If Dean wasn't holding her arm and I wasn't...then who was. Kat seemed to realize this as well and slowly looked down where a heavily bruised scarred up hand was gripping tightly onto Kat's arm. Kat couldn't even scream as she was yanked into a nearby room, the door slamming shut behind her. I raced to the door, trying to pry it open. Dean pushed me out the way, being physically stronger but even he couldn't break it open.
Kat was screaming and all I could do was watch as Dean tried to break it down with a metal pipe he found on the floor. There was one last piercing scream before Kat quieted down. "Sam!" I called as I noticed him coming around the corner, followed by a brown haired man, Gavin.
"What's going on?" Gavin demanded as they reached us.
"She's inside with one of them!" Dean called as Kat screamed again.
Sam pushed passed me, shoving Dean out the way so he could talk through the door. "Kat, it's not going to hurt you." I looked at him in disbelief. "Listen to me." Why should we, he was talking nonsense. "You've got to face it." I'll face it with salt round bullets. "You've gotta calm down!"
"Are you nuts?" I demanded.
"She's gotta what?" Dean question, staring at Sam. Kat was screaming the same thing from inside the room.
"These spirits, they're not trying to hurt us, they're trying to communicate." Sam insisted. "You gotta face it!" What had he been doing during those ten minutes he'd wondered off. "You gotta listen to it!"
"You face it!" Kat shrieked.
"We should all face it after we get that door open!" I waved my hands, before pointing at the door.
"No!" Sam shouted. "It's the only way to get out of there!" Kat screamed back at him. "Look at it, come on! You can do it?" I felt myself getting twitchy and jittery. But even I knew I wasn't strong enough to get that door open. There was complete silence for several long seconds.
"Kat?" Gavin asked cautiously. There was nothing, not a sound to be heard.
"Man, I hope you're right about this." Dean grumbled.
"I hope we don't get that door open to find a body." I muttered, awkwardly crossing my arms unhappily. I hated waiting instead of helping. There was several long seconds more. We were unable to do anything until the door suddenly opened. Kat slowly walked out, looking pale. Other than her, the room was now bare. We waited until she finally croaked, "One thirty seven." I leaned closer, not sure if I had heard right.
"Sorry?" Dean asked for a repeat.
Kat said only slightly louder, "He whispered in my ear. One thirty seven."
I shared a look with my brothers. "Room number." We all concluded, stepping away from the couple so we could talk privately but still have them within our sight.
"So it these spirits aren't trying to hurt anyone..." Sam trailed off.
"Then what are they trying to do?" Dean finished.
"Maybe it's not a spree of killing ghosts. Maybe there's something else they think we should know." I suggested.
"So they're trying to tell us." Sam said.
"I guess we'll find out." said Dean. Sam and I nodded before we went back to the couple. "So now, are you guys ready to leave this place?"
"That's an understatement." Kat said, looking hopeful and relieved.
"Great." I said, pulling out my pistol and cocking it. You could never be sure when dealing with ghosts, or anything really.
Dean turned to Sam and I. "You get them outta here." He said. "I'm going to find the room. And so we went our separate ways. Dean towards that room and Sam and I leading Kat and Gavin down endless hallways towards that door that would lead them out and away from the haunted asylum they found themselves in.